Column by new Root Striker David Rogers.
Exclusive to STR
Back in August 2015, Walter Block and Bob Murphy debated on the Tom Woods Show whether a libertarian could rightly take government money. Bob Murphy's argument was simple and effective: the government stole the money from taxpayers, and that libertarians who take money from the government knowingly receive stolen wealth.
Walter Block...

Column by Retta Fontana.
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Early humans were as free as anything imaginable. They learned that living in loose bands and tribes provided some warmth and protection against predators and the elements. As long as they didn’t violate someone else’s space or challenge a stronger person for any possession, every living thing was free to roam. It was the unquestioned norm -...

Column by Kevin M. Patten.
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As of late April, the remnants of an enthralling legend still stand within the hills of Pacific Palisades. Down here, some seventy years ago, a potential Fascist headquarters was being cultivated for the day that Adolf Hitler announced victory in World War Two. Afterwards, the Third Reich would make its way across the ocean to the shores of Los Angeles...

Column by Douglas Herman.
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Our Republic Reels from Absurdity to Obscene in Prez Selection 2016
Maybe I’m getting old. At 66, I certainly don’t recall another presidential election so entertaining in a sleazy, openly corrupt sort of way. I don’t recall Nixon vs. Kennedy with such rancor and mud-slinging. I was ten at the time, in 1960. ...

Column by Alex R. Knight III.
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I suppose my first serious exposure to the trade, craft, and art of welding came during a brief five-month stint I did working for a railroad company. Technically, my job title was that of forklift driver, loading and unloading rail cars when freight came in to a small ex-airport on the Vermont side of the Connecticut River. On days when no such...

Column by Douglas Herman.
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Years ago, while working in LA as a struggling scriptwriter, I observed that Hollywood is a Moronocracy: movies made by morons, for morons and about morons. Rainman, Forrest Gump, Waterboy, Dumb & Dumber, Batman vs. Superman, etc. You see the trend? Intelligent, insightful opinions, subtlety, cleverness, playful and caustic remarks have...

Column by Paul Bonneau.
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I wrote up a recipe for achieving Panarchy, and posted it on a forum frequented by anarchists. It was intended as a focus for discussion more than an actual plan of events. This is a slight re-write, version 2.
*What is Panarchy?*
Panarchy is that condition, when people are affected by, and can only affect, those political institutions and structures in a...

Column by Paul Hein.
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The next time you’re in Missouri, go to the penitentiary in Jefferson City. As a visitor, of course: a tourist. The penitentiary is now retired from active duty, and its conscriptees confined to a newer facility some distance away. But the original building, grim and grey, is open for tours.
I’ve toured Alcatraz, which held about 500 prisoners at...

Column by Paul Bonneau.
Exclusive to STR
The typical arguments about race are so common and predictable, I wonder why people can’t find something different to talk about.
It’s funny how similar the two seemingly disparate positions are, if you think about it.
The so-called “liberal” position, AKA “White Man’s Burden,” is in agreement with what “...

Column by Retta Fontana.
Exclusive to STR
For the uninitiated, Airbnb.com is an online network for connecting people who have spaces in their homes, apartments, or castles to rent out temporarily and travelers who are looking for accommodations. Airbnb is secure and worldwide, although obviously more available in some places than others. It is an idea whose time has come. Here are my top ten...

Column by Michael Kleen.
Exclusive to STR
Few institutions in the United States create more cognitive dissonance than its public school system. Complaints about the cost and quality of American schools fill newspaper opinion pages, and the rhetoric of “improving education” is a staple of every political campaign. Missing from this debate, however, is the role each and...

Column by new Root Striker Vaughn Bateman.
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If anything can sum together my emotions pertaining to the relationship I share with anarchism, it would be a well-deserved expression of welcome and regret – the two being contradictory when used together. And aside from the thrilling sense of expressing righteous angst against the status quo society (preferably by...

Column by new Root Striker Scott Lazarowitz.
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In their political movement to establish a Jewish national homeland, Zionists asserted a collective claim on the land of Palestine, now called Israel, based on the Biblical scriptures and symbolism of those specific lands. Sadly, collectivist political movements have been a force against individual freedom, and the State has too...

Column by tzo.
Exclusive to STR
So a group of 20 people find themselves stranded on a previously uninhabited, lush, and rather large island that could support perhaps ten times as many people.
There is an abundance of fish, birds, fruit and other edible vegetation, rainwater, and plenty of trees and other raw materials for building shelter and making tools.
The 20 go...

Column by Marc Victor.
Exclusive to STR
I know you say you love freedom. Virtually everyone says they love and value freedom. Even such murderous villains as Adolf Hitler and Saddam Hussein claimed to love or advocate freedom.
"The German people are not a warlike nation. It is a soldierly one, which means it does not want a war, but does not fear it. It...

Column by Lawrence M. Ludlow.
Exclusive to STR
Government messages employ lots of slave-speech. For example, we are told that “children are the nation’s most precious resource.” Note the misuse of the possessive. The assumption is that people are the property of the state. In a similar way, we hear about “un-renewable resources.” Usually it’s a...

Column by tzo.
Exclusive to STR
The empirical evidence that power corrupts goes a long way in explaining the inevitable one-way course to tyranny trod by all governments. Having a monopoly on force, corruption within the government monopoly cannot be effectively checked, and growing corruption and its attendant increasing power eventually congeal into absolute power and absolute...

Column by Lawrence M. Ludlow.
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The Role of “But” Libertarians and “Hyphenated” Libertarians
There is a particular subset of libertarians that champions anti-environmentalism, zeal for maximum fossil-fuel consumption, disregard for pollution, and worship of population growth for its own sake (and all that comes with it). At best, these...

Column by Lawrence M. Ludlow.
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Mises on Malthus
In his chapter entitled “Harmony and the Conflict of Interests,” Mises included a lengthy section (six pages) entitled “The Limitation of Offspring.” In it he raises several key issues. First he identifies the circumstances in which an increase in population can be accommodated.
...

Column by Lawrence M. Ludlow.
Exclusive to STR
Environmentalism and Christian Libertarians
There are some among the anti-environmentalists – libertarians and otherwise – who call themselves Christians. Some of them believe that the Bible is the literal word of God, and they often base their approach to the natural environment on the following verses from Genesis 1...

Column by D. Saul Weiner.
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There are a lot of heated exchanges going on right now in social media related to vaccination. Many people have become convinced that parents who do not vaccinate are jeopardizing the health of others and that vaccines for children should be mandated. Politicians who are expected to run for president in 2016 are starting to weigh in on the topic and some...

Column by Glen Allport.
Exclusive to STR
Introduction for this 2013 Edition
As I write this – October 28, 2013, more than four years after the column below was posted (here with minor edits; see the original at this link if you wish) – NBC News is reporting that the Obama administration “knew millions could not keep their health insurance" under Obamacare, and has known...

Column by Alex R. Knight III.
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Perhaps never before have I encountered a proposal within Liberty Movement circles that has generated more controversy faster and further than Adam Kokesh’s planned July 4th march on Washington, District of Criminals, in which he states that himself and the other participants “will march with rifles loaded & slung across our backs to...

Column by Faisal Moghul.
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Almost 30 years ago, cultural critic Neil Postman argued in Amusing Ourselves to Death that television’s gradual replacement of the printing press has created a dumbed-down culture driven by mindless entertainment. In this context, Postman claimed that Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World correctly foresaw our dystopian future, as opposed to George...

Column by Glen Allport.
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Perhaps I should say this paradigm shift is resuming. The healthier incoming paradigm is a modern, more accurate, better-supported, and better-understood version of one that began the shift towards a free, healthy, and prosperous world more than three centuries ago and which informed the creation of the United States itself: Classical Liberalism.
- 1...

Column by Glen Allport.
Exclusive to STR
Part 3 of "Could the Non-Aggression Principle Stop the Sixth Great Extinction?"
Part One of this series discussed the Non-Aggression principle, calling it "the libertarian half of the Golden Rule" (compassion being the other half) and describing the function of aggression in creating not only tyranny and war but also...

Column by Glen Allport.
Exclusive to STR
Question: are you more terrified by Muslim extremists, by "domestic terrorists" – or by your own government? Which group is more likely to assault you? To kill you? To unjustly imprison and even torture you?
The U.S. federal government has ALREADY:
Built and is staffing a huge gulag of concentration camps [...

Column by JGVibes.
Exclusive to STR
Although the common perception of human nature is very negative, the truth is that most people who aren’t mentally ill have a very difficult time committing acts of violence. Usually it takes a sizeable payment and a fair amount of manipulation to convince someone to act violently, and even then a tremendous amount of guilt typically...

Column by Glen Allport.
Exclusive to STR
- 1 -
Plundering Wealth vs Producing Wealth
In recent decades, the rich have gathered an increasing share of the total wealth in the United States. As this wealth disparity grows and especially as large numbers of the formerly middle class fall into poverty and even into homelessness, this flow of wealth from main street (from anyone not...

Column by Glen Allport.
Exclusive to STR
This is Part 2 of a response to a column by Wesley Messamore. Last week's Part One of this column discussed the following:
· Minarchy: Lighting a Match to the Fuse of Tyranny
· Anarchy: By Itself, Yang without Yin
· The Missing Key...

Column by L.K. Samuels.
Exclusive to STR
Chaos gets a bad rap—from the academic and scientific world, even from some uninformed libertarians. Few people realize that without the dynamics of chaos, order would not exist. In fact, nothing would exist. Without chaos there would be no creation, no structure and no existence. After all, order is merely the repetition of patterns; chaos is the...

Column by Paul Bonneau.
Exclusive to STR
I was reading an article about Roger Williams. The more I learn about him, the more impressed I become.
﻿"Roger Williams was not a man out of time. He belonged to the 17th Century and to Puritans in that century. Yet he was also one of the most remarkable men of his or any century. With absolute faith in the literal truth of the Bible and in his...

Column by Jim Davies.
Exclusive to STR
I've been continuing to read the fascinating story of the modern libertarian movement's early years, as told in the Libertarian Forum, edited and often written by Murray Rothbard. It's vast, but very worthwhile – warmly recommended. I've supplemented it recently with a re-read of parts of Justin Raimondo's excellent biography of him...

Column by Glen Allport.
Exclusive to STR
Whoever cannot hit the nail on the head should please, not hit it at all. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche
Image of The Ring of Power from Wikimedia Commons
– 1 –
If I had the Ring of Power, I would only use it for GOOD!
Recently, I was reminded that to at least some extent, left-leaning libertarians and anarchists do not understand that...

Column by Alex R. Knight III.
Exclusive to STR
During my years as a practicing alcoholic, I employed any number of tactics to avoid the ultimately invariable conclusion that in order to solve my numerous problems, I needed to stop drinking altogether.
Even long after I had made the inner admission that I was, in all likelihood, suffering from the disease – and I knew or understood very...

The article below contains excerpts from L.K. Samuels’ new book, In Defense of Chaos: The Chaology of Politics, Economics and Human Action.
Column by L.K. Samuels.
Exclusive to STR
Good intentions rarely make good laws. Those who do evil almost always think they are doing good for goodness’ sake. Nobody sees himself as evil. As Will Smith, the American actor, once quipped, “...

Column by Jim Davies.
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Prior to Harry Browne's first run for US President in 1996, his friend John Pugsley wrote him a passionate “open letter” urging him not to. As far as I know, Harry didn't reply, but he did continue his campaign – and repeated it four years later. He got few votes more than the LP normally receives, but his platform and campaign were...

Column by Greg Haley.
Exclusive to STR
Ed Schultz has set quite the task out for himself. On his New Year’s Eve broadcast on MSNBC, he announced who his “Middle Class Heroes of 2012” are.
Schultz is a self-styled liberal, so his recipients of the title “Middle Class Hero” are predictable and worthy of a certain amount of eye rolling. The general reverence for...

Column by tzo.
Exclusive to STR
To anyone who has seen or read The Reader (a synopsis of the relevant part of the story is here), one of the main questions raised in the story is, "What should be done with Hanna?"
Was she responsible for her actions even if she was so thoroughly indoctrinated so as to be completely confused by the charges against her? She asked more than once, while...

Column by Jim Davies.
Exclusive to STR
Recently I re-read part of that seminal essay, Discourse on Voluntary Servitude by Etienne de la Boëtie, written in 1548, or 464 years ago. He said that if you want to topple a tyrant, all you need to do is to withdraw support. No violence, no sweat, just stop helping him.
Yet 24 years later there was a massacre of Huguenot Protestants, indicating that...